Uprising
by Writer-Author-Genius
Summary: Batman has died after a suspicious bombing. Gotham is in ruins and all citizens are scared. After several teens who are interested in Batman are approached by private detectives, things start to get scary. Clarissa Horatia and many other teens are connected in their chase to find Batman. All of these teens have special talents and abilities. Clarissa is normal, or so she thinks.
1. Chapter 1

Bruce Wayne-

11:30 pm

The humming of a motor bounced around in my ears as I pulled the hard, steel door open. I stepped slowly into the doorway, being careful to stay in the shadows. I studied the abandoned room. It had a leaking ceiling that made my stomach turn. My instincts told me something wasn't right. I walked towards a corner of the room and looked up at the dripping ceiling. I reached up towards the ceiling, feeling the wet texture of the water. A sudden, putrid stench filled the air. I sniffed the water. Jerking my head towards the door, I managed to see a hand pull reach in and pull it close with a piercing shriek. I sprinted to the door and attached an explosive to it in hopes that it would open before the whole room exploded from the gasoline dripping from the ceiling. Pulling my cape over my eyes, I leaped to the side. The explosive merely made a dent in the door. Banging my fists in anger on the door, I attempted to break it. A beeping sound echoed in the silent room, as I pulled my fist pack to hit the door for the second time. Frantically, I wrapped myself in my cape as the bomb went off.


	2. Chapter 2

Clarissa Horatia

Pineville Central School

A blaring sound pierced my dull, tired thoughts. It was the bell that signaled the end of the school day at Pineville Central High School. I grabbed my books and hustled out of class hoping to catch a ride with my friends. I quickly go to my locker to grab my phone. I wasn't a particularly popular person at school, but I wasn't unpopular. I did sports and clubs and other things typical high schoolers do. But somehow, I didn't fit in. Talking with cheerleaders and other popular girls wasn't fun. There is always something that they say that makes me rethink why I'm talking to them in the first place. I pull out my phone from my locker and check my recent messages. The messages normally consisted of my bored friends texting me in class. They all know I keep my phone in my locker, but they insist I hear what they have to say. As I scroll through my messages, I see a news story that my close friend Abby forwarded me. The headline was "Batman Dead?". I reread that headline over and over again until it sinks in. I start moving down the hallway towards the front of the school, still staring at my phone.

"Hey Clarissa!," exclaims Terri, our class president. I turn around and smile, but keep walking in hopes she won't bother me. I didn't need another distraction on my mind.

"Did you read the emails I sent you? I was hoping you could join the chess team this year! We could really use you as an asset on our team."

"Sorry Terri, I think I will have to pass. I lost against a six year old in chess while I was baby sitting. I don't think you really need me," I try to say nicely.

"I really have to go, but thanks for the invite," I mutter as I speed walk out of the hall onto the sidewalk leading towards my neighborhood.

I check my phone and see a message from Abby asking if I could come over later tonight. I look up from my phone just in time to see two thugs walking towards me. They had knife tattoos on the inside of their wrists.


	3. Chapter 3

Clarissa Horatia

I turn around as fast as I can, in hopes they overlooked me. A feeling of nervousness and fear crawled into my mind.

 _Who were they? Why were they approaching me?_

"Hey you there" yelled one of the thugs. I turn around hesitantly. One of the men was dressed nicer than I had thought with kaki pants, a black jacket, and a briefcase. I could see his knife tattoo peaking out from underneath his jacket. The other man was awfully intimidating. He wore baggy jeans and an old blue shirt with stains. He stood at least six feet tall. Their was a weird bulging in his left pocket. It was most likely a gun. By the way they were looking at me, I knew it couldn't be good.

"Are you Clarissa?" the nicely dressed man asked quickly. My tongue was tied and words refused to escape my mouth. I shook my head no, wanting to deter them from questioning me any more.

"My bad. I must have misread your name tag" he said with a laugh.

I look down to see my library name tag dangling from my school lanyard. In fact, it did have "Clarissa" printed in bold right where he could see it.

"My name is John and this is Markus" he said gesturing to the other man. " I heard you have been doing research and "investigating" Batman. Tell me, what do you know?"

My heart beat quickened. How did he know about that? I had only started doing research a week ago after Abby convinced me he was worth investigating. I hadn't gotten very far with it, but I was still working on it. I hadn't mentioned it to anyone, not even my parents.

"What does it matter what I know? I'm just a teenager, trying to get home. My parents are going to be worried sick, not to mention my friend Abby..."

I bit my tongue, knowing that I said too much.

"I no nothing about Batman except that there were rumors that he "died" last night. How crazy is that? Batman can't die! Besides, those were rumors, not facts. Anyways, I'm more of a Superman person" I say, attempting to sound casual and fix my last statement. I try too keep from laughing nervously. I knew I was definitely not a Superman person. Abby would kill me if she heard me say that. She was a little obsessed with Batman. Anything that would mildly insult him, would _hugely_ insult her. I look back up at them forcing a smile.

"Can I go now?" I practically beg. My head was throbbing from the stress of the situation. I look over at the man in the baggy jeans, called Markus. He was fiddling with his right pocket. I tilt my head to look up at his face, right before he slips on a pair of sunglasses from his pocket. One of his eyes was a shocking unnatural red! Not just a pink eye, that kids might get, but a bloodshot red! I must have imagined it, but why else would he try to cover it up with sunglasses? It was the middle of winter!

"Sure, you can go. But here is my contact" John says as he pulls out a business card. I grab it and hold it in the palm of my hand.

"Please contact me with any information regarding the mysterious Batman. His disappearance has really hit Gotham hard. Any information you have could really help us and the _police_ figure out what's _really_ going on" he states curtly as he walks away. I make eye contact with Markus as he walks away. A tingling chill runs down my spine. Markus was _definitely_ not normal, maybe not even human.

So many thoughts were buzzing around in my head. The amount of insanity in the conversation made me think it didn't actually happen. But the fact that John knew I was interested in Batman was awfully suspicious. I release my grip on the card and smooth out the creases I made. The card seemed relatively normal. It had a telephone number and email address.

 _"Maybe they were detectives or FBI agents?"_ I thought.

I continued scanning the card. I studied the business title, seeing if I recognized it. It was titled Project Cadmus.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N Hope you are all enjoying my story. I am trying to write long chapters as I go along. This chapter has two actual codes on it. I want you to try to solve the codes and post your answer as a review, feel free to actually review the story as well :) Hope you are enjoying my book please give me feedback, good or bad!**

Clarissa Horatia

I walked quickly towards my house, not even stopping to look back. All I wanted to do was go to sleep and pretend like my little "encounter" never happened.

"I must be going insane!" I muttered, trying to convince myself that nothing happened after I left school, nothing except me walking home. But part of me, call it my sixth sense, was telling me that this was all real, that I really saw a man with a red eye. I walk up the steps to my house, grab the key from underneath the door mat and walk inside bringing the key with me, just in case someone was watching and wanted to steal the key. Noticing neither of my parents were home, I slip into my Dad's office and go onto his computer. I plug in a hard drive to the computer, so I can download files on Project Cadmus. My Dad is an FBI agent so I knew he would have some type of information on his data base. I always start my research by searching the web and gathering as much sources as I can. Then I compare all my sources at the end. I typed **Project Cadmus** into the government search engine. The government search engine always has more reliable sources and information. Of course, I technically shouldn't have be on it since it only is available for the government workers themselves. But since my Dad never logs off his computer I have full access to everything that doesn't require a password, including the search engine. I scroll through the different websites on Project Cadmus. Not very many of them seemed legitimate. I clicked on several websites in hopes there summaries were misleading.

I clicked on websites titled like:

 _Project Cadmus-The Future of Washing Machines!_

 _The Ultimate Cadmus Ski Challenge_

 _Cadmus Therapy- What do you need help with?_

Just before I about gave up, I came to a website selling "All natural" spring water from Cadmus Springs. I scrolled through the web page, slightly intrigued when I saw a small inscription on the bottom of a photo. The writing was in complete gibberish.

dsamCu Labs si a cgiente eeninringge ictlyfai Dont keta hsit gilhlyt ouy aer own lievvodn

I assumed it was some code, something that needed to be unscrambled. I wrote out the code onto a piece of paper, and continued my search for more inscriptions. I searched for forever on that one website. Then it occurred to me that the codes weren't all going to be on one website, they were going to be on many. I broadened my search to the other websites that I had viewed earlier. To my success, I found another inscription. It looked harder and more descriptive. It read:

msCuadLsbantfaihtreatonisforofteh

My mind was beyond the point of solving these riddles. I grabbed my notes from the desk and cleared the history from the computer. I ejected the hard drive and left to go to my room. I picked up my phone from the kitchen table and headed upstairs. My brain sloshed back and forth as I climbed the staircase. I opened my door and crashed onto my bed, putting my phone on the nightstand, not even noticing the twenty calls I had missed.


	5. Chapter 5

POV Clarissa Horatia

I pulled the covers over my head, begging for sleep. I pushed to the side all the crazy things that had happened earlier, in hopes that forgetting about them would help me relax. I reached out from under my covers and clicked off the light, finally letting sleep overtake me.

Suddenly I was awoken by a cool brisk wind from my open window. A figure stepped into my room and put a hand over my mouth. The person clicked the light on and removed its hand. I gasped.

POV Terri Brown

I pushed through the dense bush with all my strength as the prickly leaves poked my bare arms. I looked down at my phone to check the time. It was 10:00 pm. I longed for sleep, the relaxation of it. But I knew what I needed to do. I continued pushing through the bushes until I came up to a tall plywood fence. I gripped the wood with my hands and yanked my self up. My hand caught on a nail and started bleeding profusely. I didn't care. Nothing about blood freaked me out. I jumped off the top of the fence and landed on the wet grass. My tank top was torn and my arms and hand were bleeding. I could see the flicker of lights going out from a window above. Sticking to the shadows, I walked over to the brick house and started climbing.

POV Clarissa Horatia

"Terri, what on earth are you doing here!" I exclaimed. "Oh no, is this about the chess team! I told you I couldn't do it!"

"No, Clarissa this is much more important than some stupid club. This is a matter of life and death. I was told to come find you. I don't know why or how this has anything to do with me. I came here to find answers, considering you wouldn't pick up your phone"

"Does this have anything to do with Batman?" I whispered.

"I think this has _everything_ to do with Batman" she shot back at me. Her words were like bullets, sharp and fast.

"This morning I got a note in my locker telling me to locate a group of teenagers. All the teenager's names were written on the note, you were one of them.I thought if I could get all these teenagers to join my "chess team" we could all discuss what's actually going on."

My stomach lurched.

"Did the note have a signature?" I questioned.

"Yes, it was signed. Look for yourself."

Terri reached into her pocket, unfolded a piece of paper and handed it to me. I reached for it and read all the names on the list. The names were:

 **Louise Sherri**

Sebastian Boyce

 **Zachary Theodore**

Kyra Manning

 **Clarissa Horatia**

Gloria Hannover

 **Riley** **Dunning**

I couldn't believe what I was reading. Yet it all fit together perfectly. The men who visited me earlier heard about the note Terri got, and they were asking me if I knew anything about it. They must have been working for Project Cadmus. I pressed the note between my fingers. I studied the rough paper. I flipped it over and noticed a coarse drawing in the bottom corner. It was the bat symbol. I wanted to believe this was all a prank, but part of me knew this was part of something much bigger.


End file.
